I have been unable to stop watching this thing since it was delivered. It’s all real gameplay footage, no animations or cut scenes or anything you couldn’t find in the game as a normal person. And the thing that makes it more awesome than any other trailer ever made? There is only one traditional media/reviewer quote. All the rest of the quotes come from you. That’s right, the brag quotes are from regular players who happened to be posting the day we were looking for quotes. We are so proud of State of Decay, and of YOSE. Thanks for helping to make it awesome.

That’s right. May 30. $6.99. If all goes well this week, you’ll be playing Lifeline (and the accompanying free Title Update, featuring Rucks in Trucks) by this weekend. If all goes well, this may be the first time in gaming history that a game was released BEFORE the official public target. It’s a long story, best told over copious quantities of frosty beverages, but the short version is that both the Undead Labs team and the crew at Microsoft has been burning the midnight oil to make this happen before State of Decay celebrates its first birthday.

We are now in final certification. (If you’re really into learning How Things Work, check out this link from a year ago where we explain what that means.) If you believe that good wishes and good thoughts count for anything, please send some our way to help ensure we hit our target release date. As always, your support is everything to us.

Keep an eye on our Twitter feed, our Facebook page, or our forum, as we celebrate the launch with contests and games. (And if you’ve got a thriving website or YouTube channel, and you know you can get at least a “first look” review posted before the weekend, email me*!

Last but not least – join us for a live Twitch with Geoffrey, Brant, and introducing QA’s own ChrisP on Tuesday, where they will play Lifeline, answer questions, give away codes, and as always, die horribly because they’re squinting at the chat window instead of paying attention to the zombies. Our hosts, as always, are the Xbox gang (http://www.twitch.tv/xbox) and the party starts at 11 AM PDT/2 PM EDT/7 PM GMT. Hope to see you there!

We hope you enjoy the Lifeline trailer as much as we enjoyed pulling the footage for it. If you haven’t already, be sure to watch all the way to the very end.

BOOM**. See you in the comments.

*sanya at undeadlabs dot com

*No, we didn’t actually do that on purpose. Pure coincidence. Sometimes everything just…fires… on all cylinders, timing-wise, and we have to share the results with you. We’ve been dying to share that clip for WEEKS, seriously.

The prize for the Survivor Cell Scavenger Hunt Challenge was exclusive early access to a video clip showing a never-before-seen aspect of State of Decay — in this case, building a garden in one of the game’s starting Home sites.

Now that our dedicated fellow survivors have dissected every second of the clip in brain-exploding detail (Nice work Capt.C.Baker!), it’s time to roll it out officially.

So, for those of you who have not seen it yet (what, you’re not lurking on our forums all weekend hitting “refresh” every minute?), here’s a brief ALPHA-build glimpse of one of the building mechanics in State of Decay.

On August 11, 2010, I wrote an article for our website titled, “And Now A Word From Our Team,” in which I said I’d be introducing the individual developers of Team Zed over the upcoming months. There were a small number of us who’d been working on some design and tech ideas up to that point, but that summer in 2010 is when we really started coming together as a team. It’s accurate to say that’s when work on the game we’d codenamed Class3 truly began.

Two years have passed. It sometimes feels like forever, but the truth is that’s not a large amount of time in game development years. What can you do in two years? What can a team of veteran developers and passionate gamers who are on a mission to chart a new course through the zombie apocalypse do in two years?

As it turns out, a metric shit ton.

For those of you who’ve stuck with us from the beginning — when those two years seemed like forever — today is for you. Today, Team Zed is proud to reveal the first look at State of Decay.

Thanks for hanging in there with us. It’s going to be a wild ride from here!